Reuters has learned from a couple sources at both companies that General Motors would purchase 5% of Peugeot-Citroën as part of their alliance deal. The stake could be worth $240 million dollars at Peugeot's current market value of $4.8 billion.

Sources say the deal could be announced within the next few days, but caution that an agreement has not been reached and the talks could still fall apart.

Given that Europe is economically volatile, why is GM doing this? Why not just find a way to boot out (or radically restructure) Opel and Vauxhall? Why does GM need this alliance? What can Peugeot provide that GM cannot?